Two U.K. mobile companies overcharged other European mobile netwo...

other MNOs’ subscribers to use their mobile phones in the U.K., hurting consumers traveling there. The probe showed that from 1997 until at least the end of Sept. 2003, Vodafone abused its dominant position in the U.K. market for the provision of international roaming services at wholesale level on its own network by charging “unfair and excessive prices” to European MNOs, the EC said. O2 did the same thing between 1998 and last Sept., the Commission said. Providing wholesale airtime access to U.K. subscribers of independent service providers “bears considerable similarities” to providing wholesale international roaming services to foreign MNOs whose subscribers use their mobiles when roaming in the U.K., the EC said: “The Commission therefore questions the enormous price differentials between two fundamentally comparable services.” Vodafone and O2 have been given the opportunity to respond to the preliminary findings in writing and in a hearing, the EC said. Vodafone is reviewing what is, after all, a “preliminary position” and will respond accordingly, a spokesman said. The U.K. telecom regulator, Office of Communications, isn’t involved in the case, a spokesman said. However, he said, there are “wider questions about international roaming” which require cooperation across different countries’ regulators and which continue to be looked at by the European (telecom) Regulators Group. Also Mon., the Commission issued a memo saying it’s investigating the competitive conditions in Germany’s wholesale market for international roaming, and looking into notifications by the GSM Assn. with regard to standard terms for international roaming agreements in relation to voice and GPRS-based data communications. The Commission said it expects the various proceedings to spur greater competition. Eighty-one percent of European citizens now have mobile phones, the EC said.